Midsummer

Jenny is setting our challenge at Daring Cardmakers this week and as we've just celebrated midsummer's day, she'd like to see cards inspired by midsummer and all that nature has to offer at this time of year.

I decided to do a flower print. We have some beautiful deep magenta geraniums in our front garden so I picked a sprig from there — it's such a striking colour that walkers have been known to stop and ask if they can take a bit of a plant for their own garden!

This is one of those techniques where you never quite know what you'll get. You just sandwich the plant between two pieces of paper and run it through your die cutter to squish it. Strong colours and soft leaves/flowers tend to work best although don’t expect to get on paper what you see “in the flesh” — the deep magenta flowers gave a delicate purple print. Once you’ve squished, just leave it alone for a while to dry and then brush off the fragments of plant.

I needed a sympathy card recently and I told myself I really should have one or two in my stash as you often don't feel like making one when you need one. I thought this print looked as though it would be perfect with a sympathy sentiment so that's what I did and I now have a card for the box, ready if I need it. Of course you get two prints from one plant, I'll use the other one for something else. 

Supplies:
Watercolour paper
Flower sprig
Stitched rectangle dies (Paper Rose)
Sentiment from Big Day Today (Waltzingmouse Stamps, no longer with us)
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)
Fineline marker (dark brown)

Thanks for stopping by!

Life's a beach

Miri is setting our challenge at Daring Cardmakers this week — Life's a beach. Sea, sand, flip flops, surf boards, palm trees or a bucket and spade — what do you associate with the beach?

I made a masculine card with one of my all-time favourite stamp sets, some card that made me think of sand and a die cut net. 

The shells have the tiniest touch of sparkle, courtesy of Spica glitter pen.

Stamps:
Antique Engravings (Hero Arts, retired)
Father’s Day Centers (Cornish Heritage Farms, no longer with us)

Paper:
Bristol board
Kraft selection pack

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)

Other:
Copic markers
Spica glitter pens (gold and turquoise)
Stitched rectangle dies
Netting die cut
Gel glue

Thanks for stopping by!

Pearls of widsom

It's my turn to set the challenge at Daring Cardmakers and as one of June’s birth stones is pearl I thought we’d take our inspiration from all things pearly.

I started with a piece of pearlescent cardstock in a pale silvery grey, embossed and sprayed it with some ink and then polished some of that off the high spots of the embossing. 

I decided I wanted to stamp a sentiment round the curve of the shell which was a bit fiddly but made possible with the MISTI. I couldn’t get it quite as dark as I wanted though so I ended up going over it (very carefully) with a very fine marker.

I gave the whole thing a bit extra pearliness by adding some dots in different sizes along the bottom with a pearl pen and finished by drawing a wonky frame round the square with a metallic pencil. 

I’m guest designing with Let’s Squash It for the month of June and took inspiration from the challenge there too — hop over to see what it is! The sample I made in advance is here.

Supplies:
Shell Beauty embossing folder (Spellbinder)
Pearlescent silver and black cardstock
Adirondack dye ink spray (Stream)
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Sentiment stamp from Seaside set (Crafty Secrets, no longer with us)
Viva Decor pearl pen (Ice White)
Fineline marker
Metallic pencil (Lyra)

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Make it Manly

It’s time for a new challenge at Let’s Squash It and I’m delighted to be joining Gail and Jo as guest designer for this one. You can use any embossing folder you like as long as your card is manly! All the details are here.

My hubby is a bit of a wine buff so when I saw this stamp and die set at a bargain price a few months ago I knew I had to get it! Several other family members and friends will likely be seeing it too. There’s a die as well but I actually cut the row of corks out by hand as I wanted to make it shorter by cutting one off the end - it's an easy shape to cut. The word is die cut from tomato paste tube and has come out very shiny on the photo! 

The embossing folder seemed appropriate as I thought the circles might be a bit reminiscent of cork ends and the optical illusion of them bulging in the centre might be an indication of a glass too many!

I find keeping a limited, neutral colour palette is always useful when you’re trying to make a more masculine card.

Stamps:
Wine corks (Spellbinder, stamp and die set)

Paper:
Bristol board and smooth black

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)

Other:
Copic markers
3D Circles embossing folder (cArt-US)
Stitched rectangles dies, A6 size (Paper Rose)

Thanks for stopping by - we'd love to see you over at Let's Squash It with some manly makes!

May elements

It’s the first Friday of the month so that means an “elemental” challenge at Daring Cardmakers. My turn to set it and I put together something for inspiration that I hope has a late spring vibe about it. 

For my card, I chose a flower (it’s slightly tulippy!), smooshed Oxide ink for a background that I hoped might be a bit reminiscent of the wrinkles of the fabric, musical score, glassy domes and some of the colours. I stamped the flower directly on the card base and then again on a scrap, coloured and cut out the head to stick over the base, raising the top just very slightly with some scraps of card.

I decided I’d like my glossy dots to be green, as the glass pebbles are in the photo. Not having any clear green dimensional gunk, I drew dots with a green Copic then added Glossy Accents over the top.

Stamps:
Aged Sheet Music scrapblock (Cornish Heritage Farms, no longer with us)
Creative Chaos (Visible Image)
Happy Stamp n Cut and Essential Messages (both Hero Arts, retired)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Memento by Tsukineko (Bamboo Leaves)
Tim Holtz Distress Oxide by Ranger (Cracked Pistachio)

Other:
Copic markers
Glossy Accents
Corner Chomper 

Thanks for stopping by, have a lovely weekend!

Link in the chain — April

It’s reveal day at Card Chain Challenge — mine went over the Pond to Linda G this time. 

From the options on offer I chose the sketch (mirror image because my stamp faces right) and the theme of “wild” as it gave me the chance to use this lovely leopard stamp that hasn’t had an outing for quite a while. He’s from the Saturday Evening Post line that Cornish Heritage Farms had and is based on a cover from 1931. 

The sentiment in the sketch really is there, I chose to do an eclipse one and the leopard’s spots do an excellent camouflage job on it!

Stamps:
Leopard Profile (Cornish Heritage Farms, no longer with us)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Tumbled Glass, Vintage Photo)

Other:
Rays stencil (Visible Image)
Copic markers
Hello die (Waltzingmouse Stamps, no longer with us)

There are still a few days to sign up for the May chain if you fancy it - you just need to make and send one card, get a lovely handmade card from the next person in the chain! Sign up is here.

Celebrate

We're celebrating at Daring Cardmakers this week - create a card for any occasion and include the word "celebrate" in your make.

I've combined with the current challenge at Let's Squash It which wants geometric or repeating patterns in our embossing.

I embossed a piece of engraving board (scraperboard when I was a kid!) in an old Spellbinders folder then sanded away the black coating to reveal the copper foil. Some white die cut flowers, a heat embossed sentiment and a little dome made from tomato paste tube metal and call it done.

Supplies:
Bristol board
Birthday (Letter It stamp range by Ranger)
So Trendy (Mbossibilities by Spellbinder)
Wildflower Stems I (Tim Holtz/Sizzix)
Copper engraving board
Versmark by Tsukineko
Detail embossing powder (copper)
Tomato paste tube

 

Link in the chain — March

Ooops, I missed reveal day at Card Chain Challenge - meant to post this yesterday! From the options for March I chose the theme of farm and the colour palette and made a one layer card that went to Marga in Spain. 

Bossy the Cow was one of the very first stamps I owned. I just checked back and she’ll have been in my collection 15 years come September! I’m not sure she’s ever been a brown and white cow before though. I stamped her with Coffee Bean ink and then coloured her eyes and hooves with a black fine liner.  She has a bit of grass to stand on, a touch of Copic colouring, a sentiment and my usual rounded corner and that’s about it. 

Stamps:
Bossy the Cow (Cornish Heritage Farms, no longer with us)
Totally Toadstools (Visible Image)
Essential Messages (Hero Arts, retired)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Coffee Bean, Graphite Black)
Tim Holtz Distress inj by Ranger (Mowed Lawn)

Other:
Copic markers
Black fine liner
Corner Chomper 

April elements

It's the first day of a new month so we have an "elemental" challenge at Daring Cardmakers — Jenny has chosen a pretty spring picture for us to choose at least three elements to inspire our cards.

I chose some of the colours, the eggs and some sprigs of foliage, the watercolour wash was inspired by the bunny and the little dimensional dots by the mimosa flowers. They did actually start off as pale yellow. I then dropped the card face down while they were wet. Having scraped the residue off for some reason I decided I’d prefer white ones instead!

I must have had this stamp set for a decade or so and I think this is the first time those eggs have seen ink!

Stamps:
Bird Sanctuary (Clearly Impressed/Michelle Ward)
Say It All (Hero Arts, retired)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Adirondack dye ink by Ranger (Espresso)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Pumice Stone)

Other:
Wild flower stems #1 dies (Tim Holtz/Sizzix)
Copic markers
White Enamel Accents by Ranger

Textured holly

Last day of the month and I'm just managing to squeak in with a card for the current challenge at Let's Squash It - emboss/deboss. Jo and Gail want us to use any embossing folder and use both sides of the pattern on our cards.

I cut a full cardfront and then die cut two smaller rectangles from the centre. I ran the big piece through to get the debossed texture, the smallest through to get the emobssed texture and left the skinny one as a frame in between. I've added a tiny bit of colour to a couple of embossed holly leaves and berries, a stamped sentiment strip and made my first Christmas card of the year!

Apologies that the photo's not great, bright sun and snow glare in Northumberland today! Being a last-minute-minnie I can't wait for better conditions, I'm afraid. I hope it's still possible to see the two sides at play!

Supplies:
Moonlit Berries embossing folder (Couture Creattions)
Bristol board
Stitched rectangle dies, A6 size (Paper Rose)
Vintage Christmas Expressions (Cornish Heritage Farms, no longer with us)
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Ivy)
Copic markers
Spica glitter pens (red and green)